


Hope Like a Blade, Intolerable

by berrymascarpone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Baby Obi-Wan Kenobi, Domestic, Force Shenanigans, Gen, Not quite a fix it, Obi-Wan's family, Time Travel, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berrymascarpone/pseuds/berrymascarpone
Summary: Obi-Wan sometimes wishes he could stay here forever, grow up again tall and weedy in the cradle of the valley of his birth, away from all power and darkness, forgetting all hope and horror. Live a farmer’s life, herding shaak and nauga, singing the joyful mountain songs, worrying only for the next season’s rains and the next year’s harvest.But that is his wish, not his fate.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 309





	Hope Like a Blade, Intolerable

**Author's Note:**

> I have no real explanation for this, except I recently reread the Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin, and that inspired this to some extent.

There is no death, there is the Force. The Force is an endless ocean that crashes its unresting waves on all the shores across time and space and eternity, and each life merely an instant of foam on the crest.

One man falls into the Force and tries to keep himself from splintering into foam. He has the knowledge of the Whills behind him, and the clawing desperation of a lifetime. The Force takes, it takes his brother’s betrayal like a red-hot blade between his ribs, the scouring, lonely years in the desert, the candlelight flicker of hope in the war that had no end. The Force takes it all, and leaves the man, clinging, desperate. He thinks he can swim the currents, stay the tide, but the ocean drags him under, into the deep undertow. It draws him in, inexorable, and when it has taken enough, brined the years and sun-bleached distances from his bones, it spits him out like all the beached whales and floating debris on a strange shore.

He stumbles, unsteady, and, with a final crash, he wakes.

===

Obi-Wan Kenobi is born crying.

This is not unusual, but after his first gulps of air, after being cleaned and swaddled and rocked, he continues to wail, thin and reedy, and refuses to stop, except to drink from his mother’s breast and sleep in fits and starts. But his parents, Druma and San-Mai Kenobi, are an older couple who have four other children they’ve raised through sleepless nights and more crying than a Chandrilian tragedy. They are worried, but not overly so. They soothe him with lullabies and gentle rocking, and sometimes a bit of sweet sleep-grass for him to chew on. It’s just a touch of colic, they argue, nothing unusual. He will grow out of it.

He does, eventually, and though he still wakes to his own cries occasionally, he quickly stops as soon as one of his parents comes into the room, staring with wide eyes at Druma’s sleepy face, or San-Mai’s tired smile.

He’s the perfect child, all big eyes and quiet curiosity, and very little fussing. His parents are grateful for a calm child at last, especially because they are busy with the farm and the Shaak herds, and the many things that must be done in a small Stewjoni village around harvest time. Perhaps that is why they don’t notice the way he stares at them sometimes, at his own hands and at the small blue-painted room he shares with his toddler sister Nerva, and the way he reaches out to things with just a bit of hesitation, like he’s reaching for a soap bubble that will disappear once he touches it.

===

He grows.

In his first two years, Obi-Wan is a quiet, somber child. He plays with his toys quietly, moves his little stuffed nexu toy around with a faraway look on his face, though he doesn’t touch the toy soldiers his older brothers give him. He tolerates the antics of his older siblings with an unending patience, letting them tote him around the house and dress him in their too-large clothes. He doesn’t cry much, even when Ric, his second oldest brother, drops him accidentally and he hits his head on the side of the dining room table. He stares at the blood on his hands like it’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen, and Ric is the one who starts bawling, drawing their parents over like concerned hens. He doesn’t fuss, doesn’t do anything to cause worry, and his parents are grateful. They have four other children to chase after and placate, including a toddler girl who is just learning to run, a pair of preteen twins, and a teenage son who is just starting to assert his independence, and they are happy for a little peace from him.

His parents do worry when he does not speak for his first year, does not babble and coo like the other infants, though he masters crawling and his first wobbly steps with apparent ease.

“There’s nothing wrong with him, physically,” the village pediatrician says, “He’s hit all the growth milestones, and there isn’t any sign of physical or neurological issues. Maybe he just needs a bit more time.”

His mother sighs and frets and smooths his hair as he sits quietly on her lap, but his father shrugs. A quiet boy is not the worst thing in the world, especially not after the first few months of non-stop crying. They know his vocal cords work, at least. And his sister Nerva only started speaking real words at eight months, he reasons, though he does not mention she had chattered endlessly in nonsense syllables since she could make sound.

And perhaps their worries are heard by some higher power, because Obi-Wan speaks the next day, a quiet, “Mama,” just before dinner.

Then, he looks at his father sitting in the next chair over, and tilts his head, and says, “Papa.”

His mother cries, and envelops him in a hug. His father is proud, of course, but there is a niggling sense in the back of his mind, that says  _ this is not how the rest of your children learned to talk. _ He ignores it, because what does he care of the proper order of things, now that his youngest child is calling him papa?

It’s a cause for celebration in the house, and they spend the evening trying to teach them their names. Nerva, already four and speaking in full if not always grammatically correct sentences, laughs happily as he murmurs quiet syllables to her. Ric and Mari point and name every object they can find and try to get him to repeat the words. Even Owen, deep in his sulky teenage phase, musters up a smile for his cute littlest brother, who says his name with a frown, stumbling over the syllables with adorable frustration.

===

Obi-Wan wanders.

He starts wandering as soon as his legs are strong enough to hold his weight, with the aimless curiosity of a child, peering into every burrow and hole around their farm. His father, who has grown up in this town and knows the fields and hills as well the back of his own eyelids, sends him out to the pasture with the goose flock and a long switch made of rushes with which to herd them, as he sent all of his children before, and was sent himself as a toddling child. There is nothing in these hills that can hurt him, and the boy should learn some independence. They sent their akk-hound Maruma with him, though. Just in case.

His siblings sometimes catch him sitting on a rock in the hills, swinging his feet into the air and singing little nonsense songs with a marching cadence. Druma hears him once, and he’s reminded of the songs soldiers sing in the capital, ones he’s heard once in his boyhood years, when his father took him to see a military parade of crisply-uniformed militia members singing their way down the cramped streets, feet pounding a rhythm into the cobblestone.

Once, and only once, Obi-Wan wanders off the farm, past the fences and pastures, and into the forests of tall, dark conifers, and does not come back with the geese at dinner time. His parents are frantic, and send word out to the neighbors, who quickly organize into a search party, combing through the trees.

They find him in a field of vetch and clover, face blotched with crying and buried in Maruma’s soft scales. When they ask what happened, he shakes his head and says, “I can’t find him. He’s gone, gone.” And bursts into fresh tears.

They never do figure out who he meant, who was missing. No one in the village has left or died recently, and even the animals have been safe from predators and disease. No travelers in the summer, or visitors from the city. Druma remembers suddenly the old stories, of ghosts and barrows full of ancestors’ bones, and he wonders. But he does not speak these thoughts aloud.

Occasionally, when Obi-Wan stays up late enough to see the dawning stars, his mother notices a shift in his expression, a yearning, bereft look too old for his face, like he is searching for something loved and lost out amidst the black.

San-Mai feels something almost like fear in those moments, because her youngest, her little ember child, seems so far away, seems poised to leap up and join the cold stars in the heavens. Perhaps he belongs out there—far away among the stars and nebulae. Perhaps he is only here on borrowed time, and one day something will tug on the hook already buried in his heart and call him back.

But the next morning, he is in his bed again, sleeping. San-Mai’s heart is still once more, reassured that he is still here, still theirs.

===

He relearns things he has forgotten.

When he is three, his siblings teach him to fish in the cold mountain streams, how to stomp on the ground to make the worms come to the surface, to bait a hook and to lay on his stomach at the riverbank, holding the fishing line, and to jerk the string back quickly when he feels the faint tremble that indicates a bite. The first time he hooks a fish, everyone cheers even though the wriggling silverfish at the end of his line is only as big as his tiny palm. Owen cleans and cooks the fish over a crackling fire regardless, and Mari, his older sister, blows the crisping skin until he can eat it without burning himself.

His mother teaches him the songs of Stewjon, the lullabies, lays and ballads in the high lilting Stewjoni language that they speak in addition to Galactic Basic, and he mimics her in a wobbly voice, singing of fey creatures in the hills, brave heroes on the mountain slopes, maidens lost and maidens found, and maidens who find themselves. His favorite songs, however, are the ones about the old adventurers coming home, the hero returning after years of toil and war to his ploughshare and his scythe, to sing and rest before the crackling hearth fire, warming his old bones. He listens to those songs, which are not at all popular except in the cold winter months when all people long for warm hearths and friendly voices raised in song, and there is something of heartbreak in his face.

===

Obi-Wan dreams.

He sometimes wishes he could stay here forever, grow up again tall and weedy in the cradle of the valley of his birth, away from all power and darkness, forgetting all hope and horror. Live a farmer’s life, herding shaak and nauga, singing the joyful mountain songs, worrying only for the next season’s rains and the next year’s harvest.

But that is his wish, not his fate.

===

Stewjon is an agrarian planet, full of farmers and shaak herders with their mundane problems, solved by the local villagers’ collective experience and rugged determination. They do not, as a rule, receive foreign diplomats or visitors, except perhaps the buyers of nauga wool and local herbs, or an occasional wanderer looking for some peace. So it is with surprise and not a bit of nervousness that the small village cradled in the valley like a hundred other valleys gets word that a Jedi contingent is arriving the next week. It’s only for an Agricorps project, collecting samples from the buckwheat fields, and collecting information on livestock breeding and rainfall and harvest yields.

San-Mai mentions this fact casually to her husband, a bit of village gossip. She does not realize that Obi-Wan is listening, as he always is. She does notice when he drops the bowl of nauga wool he’s combing and looks up at them.

“Jedi?” He says, wide-eyed, “They’re coming here?”

“Yes dear,” Druma says, picking up the bowl and pressing a large, calloused hand over Obi-Wan’s head, ruffling the fine-gold hair. “They are big, strong warriors, like the ones that fight monsters in the songs, you remember?”

Obi-Wan nods, but there is something different in his eyes. It is a look that sets Druma’s nerves on edge with a sudden foreboding. His child looks so far away. Though he’s looking at Druma, he stares also at something beyond his father, beyond the house and the valley, and his gaze is full of longing.

“Are they here to stop a—a monster?” Obi-Wan asks.

“They’re here to help with the fields,” Druma says, “They are scholars too, you see. Wise men and women, who can feel the crops and the animals and tell if they are sick. They are here to make sure that ours are healthy and hale.”

Obi-Wan hums, kicks his feet as they dangle over the countertop where he’s seated.

“Can I go see them?” He asks, quietly.

“Of course,” San-Mai says. The whole village is likely to be out to see the Jedi. It’s not often that such exciting guests arrive. And though it is hard to remember that Obi-Wan is only four, with how serious he seems, it is not unusual for their youngest to grow excited over new things.

But Obi-Wan does not look excited. His face is drawn and thoughtful, and very distant.

===

Obi-Wan leaves.

The Jedi arrive in town, a tall bear of a Master and his sullen, dark-haired apprentice. They visit the required farms, take the samples they need, all the while trailed by a gaggle of curious village children, brave enough to follow but too shy to approach. Master Jinn smiles indulgently at them, and produces candies from the city from his voluminous sleeves. Padawan du Crion scowls, but when his Master is busy talking to Druma about the rainfalls and Shaak births, he entertains them with a magic trick—juggling rocks without use of his hands, and preens as they gasp and giggle with every little leap of stone and wave of his hand.

Obi-Wan does not laugh, but he smiles, reaches out and—the stones fall, but do not hit the ground. The apprentice gapes, his hands still, and he points at Obi-Wan and says, like an accusation, “You’re Force-sensitive!”

The children scatter, like startled birds, leaving Obi-Wan alone unperturbed.

Master Jinn comes over in two long strides. Druma follows closely behind, and he pales when he sees his youngest son, palms upward, and the stones floating about his head like planets orbiting a star.

“Obi-Wan?” He murmurs, more acceptance than surprise because he has always known, somewhere deep in his marrow where the old stories are rooted, that his child has never been his, has always belonged to another world, another fate. That eventually the day would come to let him go.

From the look on his child’s face, he knows that time has come.

He has four other children, but it is still so hard to give this one up.

===

“There is no death, there is the Force,” Obi-Wan says, and Qui-Gon freezes, looks down at the child with the old man’s eyes.

“All life and years and distances,” Obi-Wan says, “All stars and sunlight, all will and hope. That is what one must give, and that is what the Force demands. We are not saints, but seekers, Master Jinn.”

Qui-Gon Jinn kneels down before the child. Whatever expression his face might hold is obscured by the curtain of his hair, to all except the boy.

“Where did you learn that?” He says, softly. He remembers the words, has read them in ancient texts of Force-ghosts and spiritual presences, as no more than rumors and references in historical accounts. He thinks he might delve deeper to satisfy his esoteric curiosity, one day, when he has finished training his apprentice and has more time on his hands. He wonders, now, if there is some kernel of truth to those whispers.

“From you,” the boy says, quietly enough that no one else can hear, “From life and from loss.”

Qui-Gon is silent for a long time. He says, “What do you want to do, now?”

Obi-Wan’s lip trembles, and Qui-Gon is reminded suddenly that this is still a child in body, despite what his spirit remembers.

He says, “I want to go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fun write, an experiment in style, but I don't think I'll ever write much more of this AU, unfortunately. Everyone else is welcome to write their own time travel AUs that I will gladly read though!


End file.
